Edmonton looking at historical designation for Highlands landmark

The Gibbard Block building that houses La Boheme restaurant in the Highlands neighbourhood on Friday, July 7, 2017. The city is discussing designating it as a historic building. Ian Kucerak / Postmedia

The city wants to designate the building that houses a long-time Edmonton landmark as a municipal historic resource.

The three-storey Gibbard Block at 6427 112 Ave. has been the site since 1982 of La Boheme restaurant, which features bed-and-breakfast suites on the upper floors.

The brick structure was constructed at the height of Edmonton’s pre-First World War real estate boom in 1913 to provide luxury apartments and shops for the exclusive Highlands neighbourhood, promoted as a bedroom community for Edmonton’s elite, according to a report going to city council Tuesday.

The project was partly financed by William Magrath and Bidwell Holgate — the developers who created Highlands and whose mansions still stand on Ada Boulevard — along with Ontario businessman William Gibbard.

Technically just outside the Highlands boundary, the building featured such modern touches as a central gas plant to provide clean cooking fuel, and each suite had a telephone and a bath with hot water night and day, says a note by Alberta Heritage, which lists the site as a registered historic resource.

However, Edmonton’s land bubble had burst by 1914. Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., wound up owning the property until 1945, and by the late 1970s it was used for low-income housing.

The Gibbard Block’s fortunes picked up in 1982 when Alsatian-born dancer Ernst Eder opened La Boheme, offering high-end French cooking at a restaurant that soon became a local institution.

Eder, who ran for city council and was a federal Green party candidate, moved to South America about a decade ago.

If council approves historic designation, a step up from historic registration that legally protects the building from unapproved demolition or major alterations, the city will give the owners $472,000 toward a planned $952,000 heritage restoration.

That work includes ​installing historically accurate storefronts and second- and third-floor windows, replacing the roof and repairing the tin ceiling.

The owners intend to spend a further $400,000 on non-heritage upgrades.

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